PiPhone: A DIY Raspberry Pi Cellphone

Matt Richardson is a San Francisco-based creative technologist and Contributing Editor at MAKE. He’s the co-author of Getting Started with Raspberry Pi and the author of Getting Started with BeagleBone.

Matt Richardson is a San Francisco-based creative technologist and Contributing Editor at MAKE. He’s the co-author of Getting Started with Raspberry Pi and the author of Getting Started with BeagleBone.

Even without the Compute Module, software engineer and Raspberry Pi enthusiast Dave Hunt made a lot of headway with his own Raspberry Pi-based cellphone. By sandwiching together a Raspberry Pi Model B, TFT touch screen, a lithium polymer battery, and GSM module, Dave has cobbled together a portable GSM phone that can place calls with a headset.

“It’s more of a proof of concept to see what could be done with a relatively small form factor with off-the-shelf (cheap) components,” Dave says. “I don’t expect everyone to be rushing out to build this one, but I had great fun in doing it, as it builds quite nicely on my previous projects.” The total cost of the PiPhone project? Just $158, no contract required! See it in action below:

Matt Richardson is a San Francisco-based creative technologist and Contributing Editor at MAKE. He’s the co-author of Getting Started with Raspberry Pi and the author of Getting Started with BeagleBone.

Matt Richardson is a San Francisco-based creative technologist and Contributing Editor at MAKE. He’s the co-author of Getting Started with Raspberry Pi and the author of Getting Started with BeagleBone.